MAN AS BABY

Growing up is for suckers

Brooklyn-based artist Michael Smith is such a baby. No, really. For the past 30 years, he has been channeling his infant self, walking around in diapers and a bonnet—all in the name of art. For his latest installation, A Voyage of Growth and Discovery, a collaboration with the L.A.-based artist Mike Kelley, Smiths alter ego, Baby IKKI, attended a festival of radical self-expression held in the remote Black Rock Desert of Nevada. The extensive installation/story is told through a two-and-a-half-hour multi-channel video, culled from hours of raw footage, and a six-part narrative structure that mirrors the festival, with related sculptures that fill the SculptureCenters 3,000-square-foot space. Tonight, see Baby IKKI in person—or at least a 30-foot-tall junk sculpture of him—at the opening party for this truly original work.
Sept. 13-Nov. 30, noon, 2009